Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us here at Scribe UK! We hope you all have a great festive season and a prosperous 2018. In the spirit of giving, and as we've been talking about our own books all year, we thought we'd share with you what we'll be reading and (hopefully!) receiving next week:
Philip Gwyn Jones, Publisher-at-Large
Being an idiot, and being highly influenced by my colleagues, who extol its virtues, I want finally to find time to lose myself in the majestic Elif Batuman’s The Idiot. And I figure I really ought to see what all the fuss is about with Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends. And something tells me it’s time to read ee cummings again, for the first time since university...
Sarah Braybrooke, Managing Director
This year I was inspired to pick up Memoirs of A Dutiful Daughter, the first of Simone de Beauvoir’s autobiographies, after reading about her life in Sarah Bakewell's At The Existentialist Cafe and 1947: when now begins by Elisabeth Åsbrink. I loved getting to meet the teenage Simone and was delighted by the mixture of wry humour and emotional honesty with which she depicts her young self. That book ends just as she meets Sartre, and I’ll have to crack open the next instalment, The Prime of Life, to find out what happens next …
I’ve been very gradually reading Jon Kabat-Zin’s book on meditation Wherever You Go, There You Are for months and I want to continue - I like his straightforward, non-didactic writing style and the eloquent imagery he uses to lay out the core principles of mindfulness. Also, I love the title and cover, which really stand out amidst the many blander titles in this category.
And I’ve just gotten my hands on a copy of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. I’ve heard wonderful things about her writing and I think there’s no better place to read a book about wanderers than from the comfort of one’s own sofa over the Christmas break!
Molly Slight, Editorial and Publicity Manager
I’ve been lucky enough to receive two early Christmas presents, which I will be taking on the train with me when I travel to see my family this festive season: Educated by Tara Westover, an extraordinary sounding memoir about a woman who, having grown up in a Mormon cult, with no formal education, goes on to complete a PhD at Cambridge; and The Idiot by Elif Batuman, which our MD, Sarah, has been raving about all year, a coming-of-age story about a Turkish-American college freshman at Harvard.
Meanwhile, I will be giving Samin Nosrat’s exquisite Salt Fat Acid Heat to every foodie I know. More than just a recipe book, it is an all-encompassing guide to cooking and eating, and the production and design is absolutely stunning, a really lovely gift book. I’ll also be wrapping up a few copies of one of my favourite novels of the year, Elmet by Fiona Mozley, a spellbinding debut about a community in the north of England and their violent struggles with the local landowner.
Adam Howard, Publicist
Having already read The Idiot I'm going to have to find something else to read this Christmas, so I've decided to take a break from current publishing and return to a classic — I've found myself reading George Eliot over the festive period a number of times in the past, and this year I'm hoping that The Mill on the Floss is as revelatory and engrossing as all her other works. If I get through that, I'm going to give Min Jin Lee's Pachinko a go, fascinated as I am by mid-20th century Japan and its fraught (to say the least) relationship with Korea. But then again, my 12-year-old, fantasy-loving heart will probably convince me to wade into Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust, even though it's far too large to take to my Mum's. I also have my fingers crossed that I'll have Justin Hopper's The Old Weird Albion in my stocking – a tour of the strange, eerie corners of the English South that sounds right up my street.
Sophie Leeds, Digital Marketing Coordinator
I will be reading the classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle at least twice a day for the next month. My daughter delights in the gluttony of the caterpillar and relishes the greedy Saturday full of cakes and cheese and sausages. She hates the butterfly at the end. ‘What’s the point,’ she thinks, ‘of being an industrious goal-oriented foodie if you’re only going to turn in to a flimsy butterfly that has exactly zero adventures?’ She calls the butterfly ‘sad’ and then makes me start at the beginning to relive its glory days.
For myself I will be re-reading my all-time favourite Christmas book The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. It’s been my Christmas staple every year since I was a teenager and I still love it. It takes on the classic Christmas story of ‘what happens when people stop believing in Santa’ much like The Santa Clause or Miracle on 34th Street but with the Grim Reaper instead of Tim Allen and a surly governess instead of a precocious 7-year-old.
On my Christmas list this year are books that will really help me refine my mum-meddling skills; I have taken to interfering with all the creative pursuits of my brothers-in-law as they try and turn their hobbies into real businesses that result in money. As such I’ve been reading a number of business and marketing books and The Creative Entrepreneur: Business Made Beautiful For Artists, Makers and Designers looks like a book that could really help me gain financial control over my husband's family and thus secure my place as future matriarch of the Leeds clan.